""I'm sorry I couldn't have stopped the kind of attacks that came to you. But I never attacked her, I supported her"

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Former Vice President Joe Biden apologized to Anita Hill Friday for not stopping senators from grilling her during hearings he held on Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court confirmation, though he stopped short for saying sorry over his own actions.

Defending his intentions at the time, Biden also urged current senators to learn from how Hill was treated in 1991 as they consider how they might question Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

"Anita Hill was vilified, when she came forward, by a lot of my colleagues, character assassination," Biden said on the "Today" show. "I wish I could have done more to prevent those questions and the way they asked them."

He continued, "I hope my colleagues learned from that. She deserves to be treated with dignity. It takes enormous courage for a woman to come forward, under the bright lights of millions of people watching, and relive something that happened to her."

Kavanaugh Accuser Goes Public

The woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of pinning her to a bed and putting his hand over her mouth came out of anonymity for the first time in an interview with The Washington Post. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor with Palo Alto University, said she decided to come forward after parts of her story leaked.

(Published Monday, Sept. 17, 2018)

Biden was head of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Hill came forward to accuse Thomas of sexual harassment, something Thomas denied on his way to being confirmed as a justice. Hill faced withering scrutiny as senators peppered her with questions, including whether she made up the accusations.

It led to a backlash the following year, dubbed "The Year of the Woman," when more new women were elected to Congress than ever before. Biden has received criticism for allowing the intense cross-examination and for not calling other witnesses who might have supported Hill.

Biden has offered apologies to Hill before about how he let the hearing unfold, but never directly said sorry for his own conduct.

He said in November that he was "so sorry that she had to go through what she went through." The next month, he said in an interview, "I owe her an apology," when asked about Hill after she told The Washington Post that she didn't think he'd taken ownership of how the hearings went.

Hill joked to Elle magazine this week that she's been waiting for Biden to follow through on that apology he owes her, but said "there are more important things to me now than hearing an apology."

Asked Friday on what he would tell Hill now, Biden insisted he had supported her, apologizing for how he ran the committee.

'Little Delay' Possible on Kavanaugh: Trump

President Donald Trump said Monday that the vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court may take longer than expected following a woman's claim that the judge sexually assaulted her at a party when they were both in high school.

(Published Monday, Sept. 17, 2018)

"I'm sorry I couldn't have stopped the kind of attacks that came to you. But I never attacked her, I supported her. I believed her from the beginning and I voted against Clarence Thomas," he said.

Biden also said he supports Ford's call for an FBI investigation into her allegation against Kavanaugh, which he has denied. Biden noted that Hill's claims were investigated ahead of her hearing and said there shouldn't be a vote without it.

"What the devil have we learned here?" Biden said, noting that the public's perceptions about accusations of sexual misconduct have changed since the Hill hearings